Meshcapade’s seed round
Meshcapade raises $6M to train foundation models for the analysis and generation of 3D humans
Big day!
I’m incredibly excited to announce that we have raised a $6M seed round led by the amazing Diana Kimball Berlin at Matrix and joined by some brilliant tech minds, including Nate Mitchell (Co-Founder of Oculus), Matthew Ball (Author of “The Metaverse”), William O’Farrell (Co-Founder of BodyLabs), Andrew Hamel (Former VP Machine Learning at Amazon), Gary Bradski (CSO at OpenCV), CLO 3D (provider of leading 3D clothing software), and others.
We launched Meshcapade in the spring of 2018, and until now had been chugging along on a slightly different tune than most tech startups. We started off with customers already at the door. It was great. It was scary. We had to hit the ground running, and give ourselves a crash course on building a business that could immediately serve the customers we had right away, while also working constantly towards the bigger goal of what we envision our technology can do. Along the way, we also brought on a few amazing angel investors who have continually helped us with their advice, time and unwavering support because they also understood the vision and jumped in wholeheartedly.
So, what are we building?
Today, everything we’ve achieved with AI is just the tip of the iceberg. Despite the breathtaking progress in large language models (LLMs) and generative AI, today’s AI systems still struggle to understand how we humans move, interact with the world, and express ourselves. Yet, the most important pieces for all real world applications will always be the humans who interact with them.
As we look towards the future, it is clear that for us to effectively use AI in our daily lives, it needs to understand how we look and behave. This is where Meshcapade and our SMPL Standard for 3D Humans step in, aiming to provide the “digital human layer” of the internet. From clothing to gaming, from VR to healthcare, Meshcapade’s technology provides the foundation for all applications to transport the physical reality of people — talking, moving, interacting with the world — into the digital space.
Our mission is to make technology more human. Since 2018, we have been building the “digital human layer” of the internet that supports all business applications that must “see” or generate humans. Starting with the patented SMPL body model, we built the standard representation for all AI, graphics and computer vision needs. Through easy to use APIs and web-based apps, we have been building instant avatar solutions that allow users to convert images, videos, body scans, motion capture data, text, and measurements into 3D digital humans.
We are creating the class-leading foundation models for the analysis and synthesis of 3D human motion. Our platform takes an image or video and generates a precise 3D model of the body shape and pose, making it possible for businesses to see and generate accurate 3D motion. This is all part of a broader goal: To provide the 3D digital human foundation for every industry.
Everything we’ve built on the Meshcapade platform is powered by the SMPL Standard family of body, face, hand, and foot models, the only commercially available solutions for 3D humans that use machine learning to represent accurate body shape and motion. Trained on over one million 3D and 4D body scans, the SMPL Standard is unparalleled in its accuracy and compatible with all game engines.
Since we launched in 2018, we’ve been growing rapidly, becoming a trusted provider for the SMPL Standard and for 3D human solutions for some of the world’s largest businesses including six of the top ten NASDAQ companies. We serve over 100 customers in many different verticals, ranging from Microsoft to Zalando. It’s a testament to the importance and value of the vision that we started with, and a clear indication of the dire need for the “digital human layer” in today’s business landscape.
Give it a try
You can try out our instant 3D avatars at me.meshcapade.com.
Next stop: foundation models for analysis and synthesis
Talha, Michael and I embarked on this journey together and knew one thing with absolute certainty: there are no absolute certainties in AI. It is an extremely exciting field which has yet to yield many more amazing results. The other thing we all knew for sure was that we will continue to learn and be excited about where this space is going. With Michael bringing in his pioneering work in computer vision and 3D humans, my background in computer graphics and the seminal work on creating the SMPL model together with Michael, and Talha with his years of software engineering expertise that would be critical to building the platform we envisioned, we set off.
It has been an exciting journey so far and with this investment round we are aiming for mankind’s next giant leap towards making foundation models for the analysis and synthesis of 3D human motion and appearance.
Thanks for joining the ride!
First off, I want to express how thankful I am to our customers, all of whom have helped us grow from a small trio with a vision to where we are today. As we look towards the future, the human element in AI will become more critical than ever.
Secondly, and most importantly, I am grateful to and immensely proud of the team we’ve built together at Meshcapade. They are the ones who have taken our vision and made it their own, and are able to keep surprising us founders constantly with newer, better ideas everyday. I can’t wait to see what lies ahead for Meshcapade and am excited to continue building the future of 3D digital humans with all of you.
Want to join the adventure?
We are a team of passionate creators from a variety of backgrounds, seeking to change how people generate, think about, and make use of digital human avatars: https://meshcapade.com/careers
You can find more information about Meshcapade at meshcapade.com, read all about the team at https://meshcapade.com/about-us.
For questions, please feel free to reach out at info@meshcapade.com.
